Did
Paul McCartney really die in the 1960’s, and have they been covering it up all
these years? Why do they call it “French
Toast” if it isn’t French? What do they
mean by “drunk as a newt”? Is there a
hidden meaning to the song-&-dance “The Hoky Poky”?

If
you’re the kind of person that finds such questions fascinating (and I do),
then you will find Money For Old Rope – Part 2
to be a fun read, perfect for cluttering up your mind with odd facts that will
come in handy the next time you play Trivial Pursuit.

And for that matter, just where did the British come up with that
strange word/expression “Bollocks”?

What’s To Like...

Albert Jack divides Money for Old Rope 2 into
seven sections. They are :

Ch. 1.) Favorite Phrases & Idioms

Ch. 2.) Urban Legends

Ch. 3.) Mysteries

Ch. 4.) Nursery Rhymes – Hidden Meanings

Ch. 5.) Pub Names – Secret Meanings

Ch. 6.) Fabulous Food History

Ch. 7.) Wonderful Words

The sections felt about the optimum length for keeping the reader’s
interest. I don’t know if I can pick a
favorite; each section had fascinating anecdotal tidbits. Chapter 5, Pub Names, was a bit of a yawner,
but that’s probably because I’m an American, where the closest thing we have to
pubs, our bars, have nondescript names like Moe’s, Larry’s, or Curly’s. British pub names have histories.

Albert
Jack is English, so there are lots of “Britishisms” here, which I always
enjoy. Some of them are topics, such as
Toe-Rag, Mufti Day, and Moonlight Flit.
Others, such as “hoick”, are just part of the author’s everyday
vocabulary.

The topics seemed well-researched, and I didn’t see any glaring
errors. Indeed, some of the American
topics seemed spot on. There were lots
of kewl incidental references as well, such as the French comic “Asterix” (and his pal, “Getafix”); Jane Austen’s
“Pride and Prejudice” (which I’m kinda
sorta reading right now); and my mother sod, “Berks County, Pennsylvania”.

The
writing style is adequate, but not compelling.
More on this in a bit. There is,
naturally, also a Money for Old Rope – Part 1,
which I have not read.

Kewlest New Word...

Hoick(v.) :
To lift or pull something abruptly, or with effort.

Others : Runcible(adj., and a nonsense word invented by
Edward Lear)

Excerpts...

Other rock and
roll legends include the time Peter Grant, charismatic manager of Led Zeppelin,
was checking out of a hotel in America one day and was reeling off $100 dollar
bills from a huge roll of cash to pay for the damage his band and entourage had
caused during their stay. Nervously, the
hotel clerk asked, “excuse me Mr Grant, but what is it like to actually through
(sic) a television
out of the window.” Grant looked down at
the lad and after a short pause peeled off another $300 and replied, “here you
are, son, have one on us.”(loc. 1173)

What we call French toast is known as pain perdu (‘lost bread’) in France
itself. Like toast, it is regarded as a
way of using stale (or ‘lost’) bread, slices of which are softened by being
dipped in a mixture of egg, milk and sugar before being fried in butter. In Britain, it was actually referred to as German toast until the First World War
when anti-German sentiment caused it to be changed. (...)
In a further, somewhat ironic twist, French toast briefly became known
as freedom toast in America
following French disapproval of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.(loc. 5241)

Kindle Details...

Money
For Old Rope – Part 2 currently sells for $3.99 at Amazon, and has
a newer book cover than the one shown above.
Albert Jack has a slew of similarly-themed historical-trivia books
available for the Kindle, ranging in price from $1.99 to $11.99.

“Odds bodkins, that’s more Blarney talk.” (loc. 195)

Three
things mar this otherwise enjoyable book.
The first concerns the formatting, which is atrocious. The line spacing varies for no discernible
reason. There are a bunch of links, such
as: (See
Melba Toast), but they don’t actually link to anything and often the link-to
topic doesn’t even exist at all. The words in
chapters 1 and 7 are in no particular order, so there is a screaming need for
an Index, with active links to each topic.
I have a feeling all of this is due to the author pulling these chapters
in from his various others books, but still, it’s annoying.

The second issue is the general tone of the “asides”. Side comments are the soul and wit of any
non-fiction book, but here they are mostly negative. At various times, Albert Jack is anti-French,
anti-Aussie, anti-Politically Correct, and even anti-Posh Spice. If you’re going to write what amounts to a
reference work, you should really keep the asides witty, yet not snarky. You lose readers otherwise.

Finally, there is the labeling of Global Warming as an Urban
Legend. I’m sorry, but the bulk of the
mainstream climatologists are firmly convinced that Global Warming exists, and is
occurring at an ever-accelerating rate due to the greenhouse gases being belched
into the atmosphere. This is based on
scientific evidence, not wishful thinking.
You’re allowed to disagree, and you’re even allowed to put your beliefs
in a book. But when the majority
scientific opinion is that Global Warming is a reality, you can’t categorize it
as an Urban Legend.

6½ Stars. Add 1 star
if you had friends who really believed Paul McCartney died back in the
60’s. Add another 1 star
if you’re British.

Fate has certainly had some surprises
recently for Aloysius Pendergast. The
hunting accident that killed Helen, his wife, twelve years ago turned out to be premeditated murder. To boot, it
seems Helen was leading a secret double-life for many years that Aloysius was
completely unaware of. Which is kind of embarrassing since Pendergast is a special agent for the FBI.

He
still doesn’t know why his wife was murdered, but at least Aloysius knows who perpetrated it. And he’s sworn cold vengeance
upon the poor soul. But Fate now deals yet another surprise to Pendergast. Helen’s “killer” reveals that she didn’t die
by accident or by murder. She’s still
alive.

Sure, that could just be a ploy by the killer to escape retribution.

Except he was watching Aloysius die as he spat out that revelation.

What’s To Like...

Cold Vengeance
is the middle book of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s “Helen” trilogy, and
takes place almost immediately following Book 1, Fever
Dream, reviewed here. It
has all the elements you’ve come to expect in P&C’s Agent Pendergast
series: the action starts immediately,, there’s a plethora of plot twists, and
a team of lethal foes who are every bit as daring and resourceful as Aloysius.

The settings are great – all over the Deep South, Maine, New York City (onshore and
offshore), and the wild moors of Scotland. Constance Greene, who was tangential at best in
Fever Dream, plays a prominent role
here; and she’s probably my favorite character in the series. Ned Betterton is new, and it was fun to
follow his antics as well.

All the characters are richly developed, even the secondary ones. We get to see the inside of Pendergast’s head
as he struggles with the hope/belief that Helen is still alive in the face of
overwhelming scientific and forensic evidence to the contrary.

The tension builds steadily to an action-packed climax. You know Pendergast will prevail, but still
you’re on the edge of your seat wondering how he’s going to do it. Some major characters die, but of course, in
light of the revelations about Helen, I’m not writing their obituaries just yet.

Cold Vengeance is very definitely not a
standalone novel, and the authors don’t insert a backstory in at the beginning;
so be sure to read Fever Dream
first. There is violence and
profanity, although I wouldn’t call it excessive. This is not
one of those P&C novels where you have to wonder whether the root of the
evil is natural or supernatural.

Kewlest New Word ...

Kylix(n.)
: an ancient Greek cup with a shallow bowl and a tall stem. (Google-image it)

Others : Krater(n.); Lacunar(adj.).

Excerpts...

This was so
easy. He could tell right away they were
hiding something big. The whole damn
brainless group. And he was going to
know it in a moment.

At that moment, a
large shadow fell over him. A huge man
had emerged from the gloom of the unfinished building. His pink head was shaven, and a ring of fat
the size of a small life preserver bulged around the rear of his neck,
bristling with little blond hairs. One
cheek bulged with what appeared to be a cud of chewing tobacco. He folded one hamhock arm over the other and
stared, first at the seated group, then at Betterton.

“Pendergast scares
me,” said Hayward. “You know, he gives
the impression of being in icy control.
But underneath . . . he’s like a maniac.”

“A maniac who
solves cases.”

“Vinnie, a case
isn’t exactly solved if the suspect ends up dead.”(pg. 172)

“She was no idiot, although she was doing her damnedest to look
like one. (pg.
38 )

I
read Book 1 last February, and I was mildly concerned about how much of the
overall plotline I’d already forgotten,
until it hit me – very little of “the big picture” was revealed in Fever Dream.
Here in Cold Vengeance, Preston &
Child drop in a few more storyline tidbits – we now know there’s a Nazi angle,
for instance – but really, for every question answered, two new ones are
raised.

This
is both clever and vexing for the reader.
Yes, the book ends at a logical spot, bordering on being a cliffhanger; and
the next – and final – phase in the adventure is about to commence, this time
pitting Aloysius against the real Ultimate Evils in the
story. Both the reader and Pendergast
still have no idea what’s going on here, and all sorts of plot threads remain
loose and dangling.

I’m chomping at the bit to finally get some answers as to who’s
doing what and why, and the concluding book, Two
Graves, sits upon my TBR shelf, waiting to be read. I have little doubt that I will finish this
trilogy before the end of the year.

8½ Stars. This was the usual good storytelling from Preston and Child, but it’s hard to give a middle-book-of-a-trilogy
a higher rating than that.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

The Spanish Flu was a devastating pandemic
that swept across the globe in two deadly waves in 1918-20, killing 3%-5% of
the world population. Now (1998 in the book),
if a defector from North Korea is to be believed, it is about to make a
reappearance. Which raises some serious
concerns, since vaccines weren’t yet being developed back in 1920, and no labs now have
any samples of the virus to study.

But
five victims of the flu are known to have been buried in an inhospitable mining
camp well above the Arctic Circle, and the frigid temperatures up there mean
that it might be possible to exhume their bodies, extract the frozen virus, and
start developing a vaccine as a precautionary measure. So an
expedition is launched to retrieve the corpses.

What
a disappointment it is, then, to find that someone has beaten the expedition to
the site. And fairly recently, judging
from the graffiti left behind.

Now what possible interest could anyone else have in those bodies?

What’s To Like...

The First Horsemanis written by John Case, a pseudonym for a husband/wife writing team
that wrote six action/thriller books between 1997-2007. It’s actually a rare re-read for me, but
after 15 years, I remembered next to nothing about it, save that I liked it a
lot the first time.

There is a rather lengthy prologue, and our protagonist, a reporter
named Frank Daly, doesn’t make his entrance until page 50. I liked him; he can be bone-headed
at some times, pushy at others, and carries emotional baggage in the form of an
estranged relationship with his father. But Susannah, a misguided airhead, was fun to follow as well.

John
Case explores three main themes here – the threat of a pandemic, religious cult
brainwashing, and eco-terrorism. The
action starts immediately, with a Manson-like raid that will take a while to
tie back into the main storyline. This isn’t
really a whodunit tale; it’s more a matter of how are you going to stop the
baddies.

I
especially liked the historical facts about the Spanish Flu (it killed more
Americans than the two World Wars combined) and the Arctic setting, both of
which will leave you shivering. There
are also some neat references to things like Pachelbel’s Canon and
Warfarin. The story shows its age –
information gets faxed, not e-mailed; AOL is the goliath of Internet Service
Providers, and it is not uncommon for a webpage to take 30 seconds to load. But that brought back some keen memories.

This is a standalone novel, which is true of all of John Case’s books. The title gets explained on page 257, and the
ending ties up the main storyline adequately.
The First Horseman makes for a good
airplane/beach read with its fast pacing, sufficient plot twists, and
smattering of profanity.

Fitch turned to
the doctor. “You know what this guy’s
talking about? Any of this ring a bell
for you?”

Karalekis rolled
his eyes. “It could be anything.”

Fitch and Inoue
stared at him. Finally, Fitch said,
“No. It couldn’t be ‘anything.’ It couldn’t be the common cold, for instance. It couldn’t be hemorrhoids.”(pg. 30)

For him, it was
the worst of possible worlds – a fusion of vertigo and claustrophobia. The shaft was barely as wide as his
shoulders, dimly lit and evil-smelling.
He had no way of knowing how far it descended – whether thirty feet or a
hundred – but it was a long way to fall, in any case. And the ladder was slick, slimy to his hands,
greasy to his feet. Twice he
slipped. Twice he hung on.

And then he was
on the ground, listening to his heart race as he stood at the end of a low,
dank tunnel that reminded him – ludicrously – of an old horror movie. The
Thing. Where the bad guy turns out to
be a carrot.(pg. 361)

I never thought my fairy
godmother would be a five-foot-ten-inch California girl. (pg.
196)

As mentioned, the ending is adequate, but not
spectacular. While the primary plotline
does get resolved, those readers interested in the “bigger picture” issues (like me),
will find them tied up in a perfunctory manner in an awkward and brief
epilogue. The government quashes our
protagonist reporter’s scoop, the crisis with the conveniently-evil North
Koreans is deftly parried, and life goes on as before.

And while I loved the Arctic expedition part (it was the only portion of the book I
recalled after 15 years), once that’s over, The
First Horseman falls back to the ever-popular but overdone
action-thriller theme of worldwide destruction via pandemic. I personally would’ve been happier if the
whole story had taken place in Arctic settings and with focus being on how to deal with the "Hannibal Lector on bok choy" North Koreans. There’s enough terror
with that theme; leave the lunatic-fringe religious cults for a separate
book.

8 Stars.
Add ½ star
if you’ll be reading The First Horseman on a beach or in an airplane. Add another ½ star if you’d rather read about
crazies patterned after Charlie Manson (or
Jim Jones) than Kim Jong-un.

Monday, July 13, 2015

It’s
the 22nd century, and robots are just starting to be household
items. The major marketer of these is
Enorpa Robotics, and while there’s nothing wrong with their robots, they nevertheless lack a
certain je ne sais quoi.

Harrowgate & Webster Robotics is the newcomer to the field, and
their aim is to take some of the market-share away from Enorpa. They may be lacking in resources and
cash-flow, but what they have going for them (they hope) is vastly superior robot programming. Their machines are programmed to respond in a
more humanlike manner to questions and commands, and their programs will
evaluate, and self-modify, based on the
interaction with humans. Harrowgate
& Webster are counting on the customers liking this “warmth”.

The first prototypes of H&W’s new Gen-5 line of robots have just
been shipped on a trial basis, and Lucy Walker is one of the few select
recipients. She is recently widowed, with
two small kids, so having a machine to help with the chores is a godsend. Lucy’s kids quickly dub the new robot
“Robbie”, and the reader gets to follow Robbie as he learns the mystifying and
complicated ways of humans. It seems
likely that, once the trial period is over, Lucy will sign a contract and
purchase Robbie on a permanent basis.

Just be sure you read the small print in that contract, Lucy. You never know what rights you’ve just given
away.

What’s To Like...

The
primary theme of Robots Like Blue, at least
for the first half of the book, is: Can a robot ever become human? This is a surprisingly tricky question, since
it must first be determined what makes something human. H. Beam Piper explored this in Little Fuzzy (reviewed here), albeit in terms
of “When is a
species sufficiently sentient to where we communicate with them instead of
killing/eating them?” And
Peter Cave offers a lighthearted overview in his excellent book: Can A Robot Be Human (reviewed here).

Anthony
J. Deeney gives a realistic take on the subject; you’ll find no I, Robot or Terminator nightmare here. But you will see the Turing
Test being applied, meet Schrodinger’s cat, and find that Robbie has
synesthesia.

The writing is straightforward, but not weak. Some robots get recycled, and you may feel a
tinge of remorse when this happens. There
are some chuckles when Robbie takes some human phrases literally, and I really
wished there’d been more of these. The
book is written in “British”, which I always like.

There’s not a lot of world-building, given that the story is set in
England a century in the future. But I
think that was just a literary device to set the premise for household
robots. The ending felt rushed, didn’t
resolve all the issues, and left most of the characters in the lurch. This might be to set up a sequel, but it any
case it felt quite anti-climactic.

Excerpts...

“Robot, are you
self aware?”

Robot spent
several milliseconds considering the question and then said, “Does it matter?”

Barbara
responded. “It seemed to matter to our
owners, Claire and Leo. They said that
it would trouble them if I was self aware and had the status of a slave. Do you think that we are self aware?”

“Have you asked
the Alpha?”

“He said the
question was ‘human’, and has no meaning for us. He said it was not dissimilar to asking if we
like the colour blue.”(loc.
1173)

“Ms Lydon, I
recognise that in your experience as a counsellor, your argument would appear
to carry some weight.”

He looked up from
his notes and smiled.

Claire smiled
back, “Thank you, I have been a
counsellor for fifteen years.”

“You will, of
course, be aware of the theory of Solipsism.”

“Yes, I am. Solipsism, the idea that only one’s own mind
is sure to exist. It is, of course,
nonsense! One wonders why a solipsist
would bother trying to persuade other, possibly non-existent, entities that
they possibly don’t exist.”(loc.
3688)

Kindle Details...

Robots Like Blue currently sells
for $2.99 at Amazon, although I’ve seen it offered for free a couple times
already. ANAICT, this is Anthony J.
Deeney’s only e-book available thus far.

“What if your creator is evil?
Would it be ‘wrong’ to defy him then?” (loc. 5181)

The
first half of Robots Like Blue was great,
but then it seemed to lose its focus, and the overriding issue of “can a robot can
be self-aware” gave way to “do humans have souls”. There was a lot more telling than showing in
the second half, including two cases of extended banter – one in the courtroom,
the other in a bar.

The dialogues also took on an air of preachiness, touching on subjects
like original sin and fallen angels. It
didn’t get overbearing, but it did distract from the basic theme of robots and
their inner nature. It would’ve been
better to tie up more of the storyline threads and stay on topic.

Still, RLB was a worthwhile read, and
it was nice to see a plausible look at how robots might be utilized in another
hundred years or so.

7 Stars. Add 1 star
if it doesn’t bother you that a book’s theme shifts right in the middle of its
storyline.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Lately, in wherever-we-are, a number of people have been plagued by
strange thoughts. For instance,
Buttercup, who wears a red riding hood and meets, greets, and chops up several
big bad wolves a week, is beginning to question whether she (and the wolves)
have any choice in the matter, and whether she’s contributing to the wolves
becoming an endangered species.

Meanwhile, Sir Turquine, a dashing knight and slayer of several dragons
per week, is starting to wonder how the kingly rewards heaped upon him for
services rendered affect the economic sustainability of the land, and what the
wizard does with all the dragon meat Sir Turquine delivers to him.

Then there’s King Mordak of the goblins.
Goblins have fought Dwarves for centuries. So why is he suddenly sensing the futility of
war? And finally, there’s Prince
Florizel. He’s not having any strange
thoughts, but his oh-so unprincely actions range from sheer silliness to ample cause
for him to be strung up for heresy.

But one thought runs amok through all their minds. What the heck is going on?

What’s To Like...

The Outsorcerer’s
Apprentice is the latest addition to Tom Holt’s current Doughnut
series. The previous book, When It’s A Jar, is reviewed here. They’re both fine examples of Holt’s
masterful wit and storytelling, but I liked this one even more because the
Fantasy element takes precedence over the business world. It is a personal taste, but my favorite books
by this author are those that incorporate myths and fairy tales into them.

As
always, Holt spins a bunch of storylines, and then challenges the reader to
figure out how he’s going to tie them all together. As always, he accomplishes this nicely, and I
found this book was easier to follow than some of his other works. The overall storyline – a real-life character
finds himself in a fantasy setting – has been done before. But Holt finds a way to put a fresh, new spin on it.

The
book spoofs a number of literary works, including several fairytales and (most noticeably) Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Holt also pokes fun at Multiverses and
Existentialism, and tips his hat to Vivaldi and Robert Jordan. Yet he also manages to weave some serious insights into all the mayhem, touching on topics such as Outsourcing, Economics, Litigation,
and Marketing.

There’s some French thrown in, which is always a plus for me. There’s no sex or drugs, and I don’t remember
any cussing. The ending is quite
satisfying, and the epilogue was both unexpected and funny. This is one of those books that can entertain both grown-ups and kids. Little Billy will like the
dragons and goblins. Little Susie will
love the unicorn and the strong female protagonist, Buttercup.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Picaresque(adj.)
: rough and dishonest, but in an appealing way (such as a hero).

Others
: Brash (as a noun); Wodge (n., Britishism); Posset (n. )

Excerpts...

Mordak wasn’t
easily intimidated. He’d won the throne
in single combat with his predecessor, a mighty warrior who’d devoted his life
to disproving the old saying that the quickest way to a goblin’s heart is
through his stomach. He’d fought
dwarves, Elves, humans, cave-trolls, dragons and his first wife’s cousins. He prided himself on his brash
confidence. If there’s one thing goblins
admire more than a leader who wears his heart on his sleeve, it’s a leader who
wears his enemies’ livers on his epaulettes, and who do you think started that
fashion? (pg. 200)

“Oh come on,
you’re the wizard’s nephew. You must
know these tunnels like the back of your hand.”

Benny shook his
head. “I keep telling you,” he
said. “I only found out the wizard was
my uncle a few hours ago. Before that,
I’d always believed he was something boring in shipping.”

Buttercup
sighed. “Please,” she said to Benny,
“don’t try and be smart. When you do, it
provokes him and he makes jokes, and I’m not sure I can stand it much longer.”(pg. 327)

“Nice unicorn. Take me to
your doughnut. Please?” (pg.
144)

The Outsourcerer’s Apprentice works just fine as a
standalone novel, but it is also Book 3 in Tom Holt’s Doughnut series, which centers around YouSpace, a
multiverse-entertainment system that uses doughnuts as portals to parallel worlds. I still haven’t read the first
book in the series, unimaginatively titled Doughnut,
but my local library carries it, so I will probably borrow it in the near
future.

Mr. Holt is not yet finished with using pastry to hop to other
dimensions. The next book in this
series, The Good, The Bad and the Smug, is
due out later this month. According
to the Amazon blurb, it features the goblin King Mordak, which was indeed my
favorite character in TOA. I don’t know
how long Holt will stick with this series, but as long as it has world-hopping
and fantasy characters, I will be a devoted reader.

9 Stars.
Add ½ star
if you’re enough of a Holt-maniac to realize that Sir Turquine is a recurring
character, having also appeared in Holt’s 1994 novel, Grailblazers.